🌈 Looking Back: May 14, 2023

-

 

🌈 Looking Back: Where the Rain and the Light Met

May 14, 2023 | 6:12 PM | Kansas City, Missouri

Every once in a while, I like to wander backward through my photographs and visit a sky I almost forgot I had seen.

This one takes me back to May 14, 2023, and it remains one of my favorite photographs I've ever taken over Kansas City.


There's something especially beautiful about a rainbow appearing beneath dark clouds.

We tend to think beauty arrives after the storm has passed, when everything is calm again and the clouds have moved away.

But that isn't always how it happens.

Sometimes the rainbow arrives while the storm is still there.

The clouds haven't disappeared from this photograph. The rain hasn't completely stopped. The sky hasn't cleared.

And still, there is color.

Still, there is light.

Maybe life is like that more often than we realize.

We keep waiting for everything difficult to be over before allowing ourselves to notice what's beautiful. We tell ourselves we'll be happy when things settle down, when the problem is solved, when the worry is gone, when life finally becomes a little easier.

But sometimes the beautiful thing happens right in the middle of the hard thing.

A laugh on a terrible day.

Someone reaching for your hand.

An unexpected kindness.

A moment of peace when your mind has been anything but peaceful.

A rainbow beneath a storm cloud.

Maybe we don't always have to wait for perfectly blue skies.

Sometimes we just need to look for the place where the light is getting through.

☁️ A Little Something From the Clouds

The rain had not yet wandered on,
the clouds still held the day,
but somewhere in their darkest folds
the sunlight found a way.

It slipped between the silver seams
and painted rain with light,
then left a ribbon in the sky
where storm and sun unite.

Perhaps that's why the rainbow comes
before the clouds depart,
to remind us light can find its way
through even heavy hearts.

☁️ Cloud Notes

Date: May 14, 2023
Time: 6:12 PM
Location: Kansas City, Missouri

This photograph captures a wonderful combination of rain, sunlight and cloud cover. The rainbow forms where sunlight is interacting with falling raindrops, while the bright shafts extending downward through openings in the clouds are commonly called crepuscular rays, or simply sunbeams.

Together, the dark clouds, illuminated precipitation, rainbow and rays created one of those fleeting skies where weather and light briefly became part of the same picture.

And I'm very glad I happened to be looking up.

📷 Photography & Copyright Notice

All photographs on The Curious Cloud Journal are original images captured by me unless otherwise noted. They are protected by copyright and may not be copied, downloaded, reproduced, edited, or used in any form without my written permission. You're welcome to share a link to my blog, but please do not repost my photographs. Thank you for respecting my work and the time spent documenting these ever-changing skies.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

06/10/26 - Waiting for the Storm

-
Image
  June 10, 2026 Waiting for the Storm Raytown, Missouri 9:23 AM The forecast promised storms today, so naturally I started my morning by looking up. The sky was covered by a thick gray cloud deck stretching from horizon to horizon. There were no dramatic thunderheads yet, no towering columns of cloud announcing an approaching storm. Instead, the atmosphere felt quiet and expectant. Looking east, patches of filtered sunlight broke through thinner areas of cloud, creating soft windows of brightness among the darker layers. The cloud base appeared textured and uneven, almost rippled in places. Looking north, the cloud cover seemed even more extensive. Long streaks and bands of gray stretched overhead, giving the impression of a sky in motion even when standing still. What I Observed Complete to nearly complete cloud cover Layered gray clouds with textured undersides Occasional brighter openings where sunlight filtered through No significant vertical development visi...
Read more

June 26, 2026 Homeward Beneath a Thousand Skies

-
Image
  Homeward Beneath a Thousand Skies June 26, 2026 | Georgia to Missouri The day began before sunrise as we pulled away from Cumming, Georgia, while much of the world was still asleep. By the time we reached the mountains of eastern Tennessee, dawn had quietly arrived. Low clouds wrapped themselves around the ridges, drifting through the trees like slow-moving rivers of mist. The mountains seemed to wake one layer at a time, revealing just enough of themselves before disappearing again behind the fog. For a while, it felt less like driving through the mountains and more like driving through the clouds themselves. As the miles rolled by, the fog slowly lifted, replaced by an expansive blanket of textured stratocumulus stretching from horizon to horizon. Every few minutes the sky reinvented itself. Some places held dark, heavy clouds while others opened just enough to allow soft morning light to spill across the landscape. The weather never became threatening. Instead, it seemed conte...
Read more

July 31, 2026 Between Shadow and Blue

-
Image
  Between Shadow and Blue July 31, 2026 | Raytown, Missouri By early afternoon, the sky seemed undecided. Towering clouds wandered overhead, their rounded edges catching the summer sun while their darker undersides hinted at rain that never quite committed. Between them, wide windows of blue opened and closed as though the heavens were taking slow, measured breaths. There is something comforting about a sky that refuses to stay one thing for very long. It reminds me that change is rarely dramatic. More often it arrives quietly, one cloud drifting aside, another taking its place, until the whole landscape has become something new before we realize it. 1:17 PM | Hy-Vee Parking Lot, Raytown, Missouri Standing beneath those clouds, I couldn't help but notice how much depth they carried. The brightest towers reached upward with crisp, sunlit edges, while heavier masses gathered nearby in soft charcoal tones. Neither seemed to compete with the other. They belonged together, each g...
Read more